Through the Vents
by Flower248
Summary: Before she was a hero, Commander Shepard was just another soldier. Before she was a soldier, she was a child. This is a story of that before. Two shot, Spacer F!Shepard.
1. Chapter 1

Mass Effect belongs to Bioware and EA, not me.

This is a collaboration between myself and my sister in law, we deliberately experimented with writing in first person. Please enjoy!

Part 1 of 2

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Through the Vents

Before she was a hero, Commander Shepard was just another soldier. Before she was a soldier, she was a child. This is a story of that before.

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Chapter 1

I was sitting in the mess with several data pads spread around me. My feet swung back and forth under my chair. I glared at the data pad; it just wasn't making sense... Why had they started putting letters in my math? Letters belonged in history, or science, or, or, or anything but math! I checked the time again. Chief McGarett should be coming off duty soon. Last night he'd said that he would help me with my math today.

I heard familiar footsteps coming up behind me. I grinned and jumped up from my chair. "Chief McGarett!" I exclaimed and tackled him with a hug.

He returned my hug with a, "Little Sidra!" in _exactly_ the same tone of voice I'd used. I could feel his silent laughter through my hug. I released him and put my hands on my hips, hoping he'd not notice the smile trying to break out from behind my glare. "I am not a little; you, on the other hand, are a chief, a gunnery chief to be exact. Thus you are Chief McGarett, while I am _not_ Little Sidra."

Chief McGarett put his hand on my head, which admittedly barely came up to his waist, "You are the shortest person on this ship, my dear."

I couldn't help myself, I giggled, then tried to glare again but I couldn't quite manage it, "That's cause I'm a child. Children are smaller than adults."

"Exactly my point! You are a child, children are little, thus you are Little Sidra."

I huffed, "But little's an adjective, you can't just use it like that!"

We both laughed then and Chief McGarett responded, "Ok, Child Sidra what trouble are you having with your math?"

I wasn't sure how to argue that I was no more Child Sidra than I was Little Sidra; based on my earlier reasoning it was a perfectly good thing to call me, "They put letters in it. There aren't supposed to be letters in math." I said accusingly and pointed at the offending homework. Chief McGarett and I sat down amidst the data pads I'd strewn about the table earlier. He picked up the offending data pad and inspected it. "They only put the letters in because we don't know what number goes there yet. Or sometimes because any number can go there." He started to explain.

I loved it when Chief McGarett helped me with my school. He always made it make so much more sense than the authors of my stupid books. After he'd helped me with my math and al little bit of science Chief McGarett ruffled my hair, "It's almost dinner time and your mom will be down here soon. Let's clean up." I hated it when he ruffled my hair, especially just before Mom got off duty. Every single morning Mom insisted on doing my hair, and, without fail, by the time she got off duty it was a mess. I'd just fixed it so Mom wouldn't notice that I'd been crawling through the ducts again. However, Chief McGarett had a point, soon the men would need the table and I shouldn't have my schoolwork all over it.

We were just putting the final data pad on the pile when suddenly the cabin lights switched to red and the scream of the general alarm blasted through the air. Everyone in sight froze for a second. The com switched on and Mom's, no Captain Shepherd's voice filled the air, "Battle Stations – Batarian Cruisers over Asteria. Everyone report to Battle Stations." The mess erupted into action. Cooks seized their pots of simmering stew and threw them into sealed cupboards. Plates and silverware disappeared in an instant, piles of utensils vanishing as if dinner had never been there.

Chief McGarett was gone in that same instant.

_It's bad to fight on an empty stomach_ I thought as I swept up my schoolwork and raced to my own battle station, Mom's and my quarters. I threw my books into the footlocker at the base of my bed then glanced around the cabin. The turian fighter Mom and I were building was the only outward sign of disorder in our otherwise immaculate quarters. As I closed the door I heard my mother's voice over the com echo through the door, "Ground teams two and four to the shuttle bay, prepare for city streets and batarian tactics."

I sat down on my cot and stared at the floor. My feet started swinging in impatience again. I knew I ought to obey my mother this time and stay in our room like I was supposed to. Minutes passed. Ten, then twenty, as I exercised immense self-control and stayed put, right where I was supposed to be. Then I heard Mom's voice faintly echoing through the door, "Bomb squad, report to the shuttle bay." That was Chief McGarett's squad! Whatever was going on down there was serious. _Stay safe down there_ I thought, _And come back_. I wasn't quite sure why everyone always added that part. I knew marines didn't always come back, but not my friends, not Mom's men. Sometimes I worried that one of them would fall in love with a planet and decide not to come home to the Ankara, but everyone always came back.

I thought battle must be like a big race towards some prize. Two teams running against each other to get the, whatever it was that was so important, and then race home before the time was out. It was always the slow ones, or someone who fell down that didn't make it back, but that's what happens in the military. If you are late for your ship you miss it and have to get the next one.

The next period of silence was much harder to endure. My eyes crept over to the air duct beneath Mom's desk. No! I wasn't going to sneak into it and be a bad girl this time. The ship vibrated beneath my feet, she was excited and anxious to do something. Air rushed through the vent free and fast. The battle was still going strong on the ground and mom wouldn't even know I'd been gone as long as I was back before the battle finished.

My self-control gone and the decision made I crept over to the vent that opened below Mom's desk. I quickly scrambled in and began the trek to take me to the CIC where I would actually be able to hear whatever was going on.

Sometime later I was looking out through the thin slats in the air vent above the CIC. The galaxy map rotated mesmerizingly below. Another hologram floated above the central control table. Tiny blue buildings were arranged in triangular blocks of different levels near the shoreline of an invisible lake. Tiny blue ship transports flew up and down and chased each other over the streets. Two groups of blue dots, our men, slowly advanced against several groups of red dots. Mom stood with her arms spread wide, braced against the console. She looked worried. The blue dots didn't move forward as fast as they usually did. There were a lot of red dots too, a lot of red dots.

Ground chatter filled the air as the marines worked their way forward.

-"Two more transports coming in from the north."

-"Damn, we have enough to deal with."

-"Civilians in a basement. Blue building by the school – building a barricade and hunkering down."

"I want more air support down there." Mom ordered.

"Yes ma'am."

"And find their ships; those transports didn't just drop in out of empty spaaaaaace. They had to have come from somewhere. Find them."

"Aye aye captain."

It went on like that for a long time. Marine's curt instructions and cusses, my mom calmly overseeing the progress of the attack, crew members running errands or snapping answers.

"Captain, two contacts on the lee horizon!"

"Shit!" Mom cursed. I didn't think she'd ever cursed before, at least not where I could hear her. Other people cursed, but not Mom.

"Turn to engage." Mom ordered, "our boys will have to hold on until we've taken care of the big fish."

My stomach chose that moment to complain that I'd missed dinner two hours earlier. The gurgling was amplified by the metal vent and spilled into the CIC. Mom shot a discerning, piercing gaze right at the vent and raised an eloquently accusing eyebrow. I shrank back in the vent, cursing my unstealthy stomach. This was one of the most dramatic fights I'd ever watched! How dare my stomach betray me like this?

Below me a deep rumbly voice coughed and laughed drawing Mom's attention to Specialist Johnson. He was in charge of life support, and as far as I was concerned right now he was in charge of my life's support. He aided my continued covert freedom in the vents in exchange for an occasionally airdropped, or really vent dropped, chocolate chip cookie. "Sorry, Captain." He mumbled, patting his paunch, a paunch I happily subsidized, "My gut's a bit insubordinate at times. It objects too loudly when it's ignored."

"Is the personification of your excess blubber in anyway relevant Johnson?" She snapped her eyes flicking up towards the vent one last time.

"No Ma'am."

Mom shook her head and turned back to the miniature colony of holographs, watching a growing number of red dots slowly circling a tight bunch of blue ones. I breathed a sigh of relief, and looked down at my savior. A big beefy hand was tapping three fingers on top of a schematic of the CIC air ducts. A little purple light, me, blinked right next to his thumb. I spider walked three feet to the left, back to the right, and then repeated the movement. It meant OK. Three cookies! He was letting me off cheap. Johnson's hand stopped tapping and the schematic changed to a vid feed of the captain's door.

Quickly I scooted right, then left, meaning no. He made a fist followed by a hand about to snap its fingers.

I quickly sketched out another OK then turned and crawled away. I didn't think he would _actually _tell on me, but I needed to eat anyway. Otherwise my treacherous stomach would give me away again. I'd come back later, but first I was going to get a snack from my foot locker. Then maybe I'd go to the shuttle bay. IT was fun to watch the shuttles leave and come back. The sounds of the CIC slowly faded behind me.

"Captain, another frigate just dropped out of light speed!"

"Ma'am, forward frigates preparing to fire."

"Ready the guns!"

A faint boom echoed through the ducts.

"Shields at nineteen percent!"

I was scurrying along the starboard duct heading for the branch that would take me to our quarters when a second boom echoed along the vents. The metal shuddered beneath my fingers. I licked my lips and kept going. Two more booms sounded close by. The hull groaned around me sounding like something had punched her in the gut.

I scurried faster. Something behind me broke and began to hiss. That was bad. I was going as fast as I could in the cramped narrow duct. I should have stayed in our cabin and worked on my homework or something. I was done being in the vents as the SSV Ankara groaned and boomed around me. It was scary now. I'd never been scared in my vents before. Now, for the first time in years, all I wanted was to be back in our cabin, curled up in Mom's big bed under her covers with Admiral Tuffington, an impressive stuffed bear with awe inspiring nightmare defying abilities who, per Mother's orders, was always immaculately outfitted in crisp dress blues. He could protect me, or I could protect him. We traded turns sometimes.

I rounded the last corner and entered the vent that led to the duct behind my mother's desk. At that instant an earsplitting BANG blasted through the metal up ahead of me. My goal disappeared in a blue orange ball of fire that raced up the vent towards me. I tried to scramble back but it was moving too fast. Just before it reached my toes it slowed and halted and the world went still. Then the fire retreated back the way it had come. The ship shrieked around me, every joint and bolt screaming as they were ripped apart. I screamed too. Really, really, loudly. The ship was louder. Air began to woosh past me growing more and more powerful until it was pulling me down the vent. I rolled and grabbed onto the lip of the vent. The air rushed by me pulling on my legs and my shirt until I was strung out sideways. I kicked my feet, trying to get a grip but it didn't help. The air was like a solid wall pushing me down. I had to hang on.

My fingers began to slip and the pull increased. I had to hang on. The shields should have come back on by now, protecting the ship from the hole in her side. The shields! I watched horrified as one hand slipped free and then was wrenched downward like it weighed a ton. Then one by one my fingers on my other hand slipped free. I looked down at my feet and saw them rushing towards a black void littered with stars.

"The shields Ankara," I screamed to the ship. "SHIELDS!" A blue light burst into being under my feet and I slammed down onto the bottom of the vent hitting my head. The blue light vanished below me and I flew towards the stars once again. I stuck out my hands bracing them against the vent sides.

"Ankara!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, or maybe I just screamed it in my head. I couldn't hear myself anymore. "Don't let go of me!"

The blue light reappeared and I slapped against the side of the vent again. My shoe laces stuck out below the ship's blue shields. I watched as they stiffened and froze into place. I swallowed hard. That was close. My head hurt a lot and I lay back against the floor of the vent and closed my eyes. I felt my feet grow cold. Startled I looked up over my body. The soles of my boots were now sticking out of the shield, frozen like my shoe laces. _Gotta move._

I pulled my feet up and grabbed my shoes to take them off, but dropped them as the bottoms burned me. Carefully I eased off my shoes touching only the parts that hadn't been outside yet. Then I inched backwards away from the square of murderous stars. The blue shield inched with me. I rounded the corner and the stars disappeared from sight. The little blue shield continued to inch towards me so I kept going. Finally I passed the first set of airtights. They were jammed open by a pipe that had fallen in between them. I crawled over the pipe and squeezed through the doors. Then I kicked the pipe with all of my might. It was wedged really tightly but the blue wall was creeping up behind me. Ankara couldn't hold the shields for much longer. She needed me to get rid of the pipe so the airtights could do their job. "Come on" I shouted as I kicked with all my might. Ankara let the shields go at just that instant, and transferred her strength to the pipe too. The air rushed away again, but so did the pipe, glowing blue. The airtights slammed shut and I flew against them with a slam that left me dizzy. Slowly the air around me returned to the weight it was supposed to have, and I slipped into warm fuzzy darkness.

I woke up some time later to shouting. It was my mother's voice. She was close by, shouting my name. It sounded like she was just on the other side of the vent, outside of the door to our quarters. I would never get back in time, not with the vent destroyed. I would have to go around to the closet next to the vid room to get out of the ducts and then approach from the other side. She would catch me. Well, since I wasn't in the room answering her, she knew I was in the vents somewhere anyway. I was gonna be in so much trouble! I couldn't face her right now, my head hurt so much. I'd come out later, besides she sounded really upset.

"Johnson! Damn it Johnson, open the door!" Mom shouted.

"I can't ma'am," came a broken staticky voice over the com.

"Don't give me that bullshit! I order you to open the door. Open the Fucking door!"

"Ma'am, I… I can't open it. There's… nothing on the other side. There was a hull breach when the shields went down. Your … quarters… I mean… they …"

There was a loud bang, and then my mom screamed. Screamed! In all my life I had never heard her scream like that. She went on and on, in the longest breath I had ever heard. Her ragged voice vibrated down the vents cold and anguished. "SIDRA!" I curled into a ball and started to cry silently. She was so mad at me. I couldn't face the shame of crawling out of the vents at her feet and apologizing for disobeying her again. I was actually sorry I had disobeyed her this time, but she probably wouldn't believe me. There was silence for a while.

"Captain?" That was Lt. Com. Hordell. He visited sometimes to play chess with Mom. "Hannah?"

Darkness came again.

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AN: Please read and review!


	2. Chapter 2

Mass Effect belongs to Bioware and EA, not me.

This is a collaboration between myself and my sister in law, please enjoy!

Part 2 of 2

* * *

Chapter 2

Hunger finally woke me up, or maybe it was the pain. My stomach growled and gurgled, demanding attention immediately. My head argued with it. My brain was pounding on my eyes with my skull. There was also a watermelon sized ball of guilt and shame sitting in the pit of my stomach. I crawled to the nearest vent and looked out of the slats into the entryway to our room. There was no one there. The ship hummed in the background. The engines were thrumming along as if we were flying through some system at sub-light speed, but they sounded softer than they usually did. Maybe we were just orbiting.

I gently eased open the vent and slid out. When I tried to stand my feet screamed at me. I collapsed to me knees with a whimper, and then my knees complained too. I looked down and gasped. My grey shirt was covered in a large stripe of sticky maroon flowing down from my left shoulder. I touched my neck and my fingers encountered a crust of dried blood that flowed down from my ear, across my neck and down my shirt. This small tendril was joined at the shoulder by more blood that came from a large gash just under my clavicle. I had blood on my face too.

I shuffled over to the door and punched the button, but it didn't open. If I couldn't wash the blood out of my shirt I would get bathroom duty on top of whatever else my mom doled out. I was going to be in so much trouble! I tried the door one more time, but the light stayed red. I frowned at it and stuck out my tongue. The options for plan B were pretty slim. I could go to the mess hall and feed my overly demanding tummy, or I could go to the med bay and get a band aid for my arm, and maybe a few for my knees, and feet. Maybe they would even have one for an ear shaped hurt. I still couldn't hear out of it right. Every noise seemed to hum a little too much. Maybe it would be best if I went there first.

I stood up and tried to walk to the elevator, but my feet hurt a lot. I sat down again. It would be really embarrassing if I rode the elevator sitting down, and then had to crawl across the crew deck to the med bay. Better to take the ducts again. I sighed and turned to the ducts.

I felt a sudden sense of apprehension as I crawled into their rectangular confines again. Why was that? They had never been scary before, and it hadn't been the ducts that had tried to hurt me, it had been the stars. The stars with their bright fire so cold it burned. If it hadn't been for Ankara's shields and her help with the door, the stars would have gotten me, and pulled me out into their airless ocean.

_Stop being silly_, I told myself. I patted the firm grey metal, the tunnels that were my freedom, and slowly crawled off in the direction of the medbay.

I opened the duct to the back of the medbay and looked out. There was a lot of activity in here, but most of it was concentrated on the forward side of it. Here in the aft portion the lights were dimmed. Several of my mom's marines were here, some asleep on gurneys, others just resting on the floor, too tired to walk to their beds just down the hall. I carefully replaced the vent cover and stood up. I was mostly hidden in the shadows. No one noticed me. In a way that would be easier, then I wouldn't have to walk up to them and report what had happened. For a few moments I just stood there wondering what to do.

The man in the next bed over began to groan, clenching and unclenching the bed sheets with his powerful hands. Maybe he was having a bad dream. I wished I had Adm. Tuffington with me. The admiral would have kicked those nightmares into the next solar system. Well, it was my turn anyway. I crept over to the man and grabbed his big hand in my two smaller ones. The man turned his face towards me. My breath stopped.

It was Chief McGarrett, but he was hurt. The whole right side of his face was black and bloody, his right eyelid swollen and shut. The other side of his face was ok, maybe the doctors had already fixed that side and had run out of medigel to fix the other. Maybe that's what they were doing over there by the other beds in the light, looking for more medigel. For a moment we stared at each other, unable to say anything.

I licked my lips and tried to smile, but I felt myself crying instead.

"Sidra" he breathed.

"Chief" We stared at each other again.

"They must have, run out of medigel" I stammered. I didn't have anything else intelligent to say.

"Yeah," he agreed, "They didn't have any for me either."

I looked down towards the far end of the medbay, where the doctors were still bustling about between the occupied beds. "Are you in line?" Lines made sense, especially in the military. You didn't always get what you needed right away, but there was usually a line you could wait in to get it.

A breath rushed out of him, a laugh, a cough? "You could say that."

I nodded.

Chief McGarrett reached up and pressed his hand to my face. He ran his big calloused thumb over my cheek. All of a sudden he was angry, furious. He gritted his teeth and growled. His other hand clenched into a fist so hard it shook. I was frightened. What had I done? "I should have been here!" He cried. "Here. Here! Not on that damn planet!"

A nurse looked over from the nearest cot, but after a cursory glance she went back to her work on the patient in the bed. She didn't even notice me. She looked sad, and determined all at the same time.

"I don't understand Chief" I stammered. He was acting so strange. I was confused and a little afraid. "Of course you had to go down to the planet. They needed you."

"You needed me." He insisted. "I needed to be here. I should have been here."

"I'll be ok." I said. "I only need a bandaid or two. I'll get one after they come back and finish helping you."

The chief took my hands in his again. His hand was shaking hard. "I want you to know… You were my reason little one." He turned his head away to look at the ceiling. A tear fell out of his eye and snaked down his brown cheek. "Lot of guys have a reason, and you were mine."

He paused, tears were pouring out of his good eye now. He looked desperate, like he had to explain something important to me. "There were these kids see. Playin' in the depot when they hit. They didn't stand a chance but somehow… Somehow the batarians passed over 'em in the first wave. Hiding under a skycar. We land two blocks away, start working our way to the center. Came around a corner, n' there they were, fear and hope all rolled into the biggest eyes you ever saw. They saw me and started to run over. Left their cover without even looking. Three batarians saw em. One opened fire." – "I shot that one" – I nodded. "Then one of those bastards threw a f%^&amp;ing grenade, those new sticky kind. Right in front of em. Kids didn't slow down at all, just kept running at me like I was gonna save em." He huffed out another laugh. "So I did." He fell silent after that. I didn't really know what to say. That sounded like he was a hero, but I didn't understand why it made him upset.

"Why are you here?" he suddenly demanded in a loud voice.

That was a silly question. What did he think I was doing in the medbay? Coming to do homework? I looked around but no one was paying attention to us, but if he didn't quiet down he was going to wake everyone else who was sleeping in the dim area. "Isn't it obvious?" I asked in a soft gentle voice, hoping that he would calm down too.

He huffed again. The fight suddenly seemed to go out of him. "Yeah, I guess so."

He looked at me again and grabbed my hands in his. "I'm so tired little one. I'm just so tired." He cried.

"You should go to sleep." I said, that was a simple problem to solve.

He blinked at me. Tears still leaking down his face. "I'm scared little one."

"I'll protect you." I replied, happy I could do something to help. "Admiral Tuffington used to protect me at night when I had bad dreams. He taught me how to chase away nightmares. I'll stay with you and make sure you can find all the good dreams."

The chief sniffed and nodded. He shook both of my hands in the way that marines do before they go on a mission. "Ok" he said.

I nodded firmly, it seemed the thing to do. I crawled up into the bed with him and assumed my command. I curled around his big beefy arm, using his muscular shoulder for a pillow. Even lying on his back, and me on my side, his chest was taller than me. After a few minutes his ragged breathing eased into something a little shallower. It wasn't long before I drifted off to sleep too.

Six hours later a nurse began to walk down the line of men laid out in the dimmed medbay. "Oh my God!" She whispered, when she found two people in McGarrett's bed. "Oh, Oh My GOD!"

I was startled awake as the nurse ran shrieking out of the med bay. A moment later the doors opened and a flood of people poured into the room. A tide of people rushed to my bed and lifted me up and away from McGarrett. The faces of marines, doctors, engineers and nurses whirled around me. Everyone was shouting at everyone else to do something and the cacophony was deafening.

"Doctor! Doctor!"

"Sidra, it's Sidra"

"Here, in the med bay!"

"Get the captain!"

"Commanding officer to the med bay!"

"We found her!"

"She's alive!"

"It's Sidra!"

The next thing I knew the doctors had pushed their way to the center and were pulling my socks off, poking light into my eyes and dabbing at me with cotton swabs and gauze. The nurses did their best to form a human barrier against the marines and other crewmembers that were enthusiastically trying to breach the tight circle of medical personnel that surrounded me.

Suddenly, the non medical invaders began to retreat. Someone new was shouting at the back of the crowd. The press around the doctors evaporated as the new voice, ringing with authority and something else, overrode the discordant ruckus. I knew that voice. I tried to shrink down inside the ring of doctors and think invisible thoughts, but it was no use. Everyone knew I had climbed out of the vents looking like I had been run over by a tank.

"Stand Aside!" Captain Shepherd's awe inspiring voice rang out over the din. Everyone hurriedly shrank against the walls as my mother's firm steps strode sharply down the center of the room. _Here it comes._ I thought.

I felt the nurses flinch away from my mother. The doctor's were a little more reluctant. They were like a pack of varren, once they got a hold of a wounded animal they never let go and they protected it to the death against any foe. My mother, however, wasn't just any foe. One unfortunate man tried to stand in her way. "Ma'am, we need to…"

What ever he was going to say was cut off as my mother punched him right in the mouth. He spun around and then collapsed in a heap on the ground. My mothers boots stepped over him and then stopped. I couldn't bring myself to look her in the eyes. In all the running around in the vents, and then protecting McGarrett while he slept I hadn't had time to come up with something to say to my mother when this moment finally arrived. So I just stared at her perfectly polished boots. I sniffed and a tear rolled down my cheek. After a moment when nothing happened I looked up at her face.

It was the most astonishing sight I had ever seen. I had heard my mother yell, I had even heard her cuss. Once I had seen her give a dress down so biting that she had made a young marine faint with scathing words alone. Occasionally, I saw her sweat a little when she was commanding a particularly close fight. The one thing I had never, ever seen my mother do was cry.

Now there were not only tears in her eyes, but streams of them pouring down her perfect cheeks, dripping off of her jaw and on to her perfect blue uniform. I stared at her, mesmerized by the two rivers of emotion. Her mouth was slightly open and her eyes were wide with disbelief. Suddenly, she collapsed to her knees. I was swept up into her arms and crushed against her in a fierce hug.

I had not expected this response at all. I didn't know what to do, but I hugged her back with all my might. The last several hours had been terrifying but suddenly I was in the safest haven of all, tucked into my mother's strong protective arms; I began to cry too.

"Oh baby," My mother sobbed into my hair. "Oh my sweet baby."

She was weeping now, with long ragged breaths and choking sobs. Her grip on me never let up on its crushing strength. "Mom," I said distressed. Everyone was watching us, I could feel it even though my face was pressed into her shoulder. "Mom, the commanding officer's not allowed to cry."

"Hush Sidra" my mother said, "and let me hold you."

My mother began to rock me back and forth murmuring into my hair. I didn't catch most of what she said. She was talking to my dad, Andrew. "Oh my love, I don't know what I would have done. My baby, our baby, our sweet little girl. I almost lost her, Andrew. I couldn't do anything. Oh my Sidra, my precious little Sidra. My baby girl."

"I'm sorry I disobeyed you Mommy." I said softly. " I won't go into the vents again. I'm sorry."

My mom's arms tightened around me all over again. "Oh baby, you can climb through the vents as much as you want. I'll never get mad at you for it ever again. I promise. Ducts, vents, elevator shafts, you can go wherever you want as long as you stay alive. Oh I love you baby. I love you. I love you so much!" Eventually, Mom calmed down and stopped rocking me, but she didn't let go.

After a while a voice softly cleared its throat. "Sidra has a broken clavicle Ma'am and some other cuts and scrapes we would like to clean up when you're ready."

I felt my mother nod her head. "Of course."

She picked me up and carried me to the nearest available gurney. Then she took half a step backwards and allowed the doctors to approach. They gently eased my socks off and doctored my bleeding feet. They pressed antiseptic covered gauze onto my neck and ear. They shone lights into my eyes and took my pulse. A nurse gently cleaned away the blood from my shoulder so the doctors could look at my collar bone. Then another nurse helped fit my arm into a sling. Through it all my mother stood one step behind me and to the left, watching them with the eyes of a hawk, looking for any mistake they committed with the care of her precious daughter. Dr. Harinski stepped over and murmured a question to my mother. My mother's scowl deepened, but then she assented. The doctor then approached me with a syringe, wiped a spot on my arm with disinfectant, and gave me a shot.

I felt drowsy almost immediately. The nurses eased me back onto a pillow and then began to pick up. My eyelids grew heavy and I looked at my mom. She smiled down at me and passed her hand through my dirty hair. Then she leaned down and kissed my nose, and then my forehead. "Goodnight Sidra. Sleep well. I love you."

"I love you too mommy." I mumbled as I fell asleep.

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AN: We have several other short stories about Sidra Shepard written. If this gets a positive response I may type them up and post them.


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